Day one of this road trip sees us traveling some 360 miles to Sweetwater, Texas (located around 180 miles west of Dallas Fort Worth) which lays claim to an interesting title! This comparatively small town with a population of around 11,000, is home to the world’s largest Rattlesnake Round-up!

Held annually, the purpose of the event was originally designed to eradicate a portion of the rattlesnake population and lessen its threat to the town and surrounding communities. While still doing this, these days the round-up, which can also be called a rattlesnake rodeo, is a common festivity in the rural Midwest and Southern US, which has morphed into a fair-like event with trade stalls, food and rides alongside information on rattlesnake identification and safety.

Held each March, Sweetwater’s 2017 Rattlesnake Round-up attracted some 40,000 visitors and pumped over $8 million into the local economy. The main attractions are captured wild rattlesnakes which are sold, displayed, killed for food or animal products such as snake skin or released back into the wild.

Each captured snake is weighed and measured, its sex recorded and compiled into data given to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Service. Most of the snakes are then skinned, beheaded and milked of their venom which is made into anti-venom and sold to pharmaceutical companies. The skin, heads, tails and rattles are preserved while the meat is deep-fried and served at the festival!

Sweetwater’s 2017 “Miss Snake Charmer” in the rattlesnake pit.

We hit the road today on our latest road trip! This time our route will take in Lubbock in Texas to see my stepson Chris and then onto Pueblo and Colorado Springs in Colorado.

Our traveling companions include the entire gang of fur babies – Miss Poppy-dog and kitties Abigail, Archer, Artie and Holly. This is a first for us, and we are going to test out a new arrangement to see if it can work for future road trips.

In Lubbock, we will drop off kitty Artie with Chris, who adores him, and take off with the three remaining kitties and Poppy. This sounds a little strange but on our last road trip we took Abigail and Archer and left Artie and Holly at home. On returning from the road trip I forgot to put on my kitty psychology hat and world war II broke out between the two kitties who had had the house to themselves for five weeks and the two who had been away. Oh my, it was a full two weeks before kitty order was restored!

Not wishing to repeat that again, and due to bullying of Artie by Archer, we thought we’d try this experiment and see how it goes. Artie gets to be spoiled by Chris and have an Archer-free holiday, and with the liberal use of a water spray bottle, we can prevent Archer venting his bullying tendencies on Miss Holly, who gives him as good as he gives out. This way, no one is left at home to create their own fiefdom and fingers crossed, it will work although I will dearly miss my beloved Artie ……………. we shall see!

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for not taking my blogging responsibilities seriously since sitting out hurricane Harvey in Texarkana! I promise to get the hang of this communicating malarky someday soon, which is somewhat cute coming from a former communications professional – see what retirement life does to you!

Anyway, we are heading out on Thursday on our latest trip to explore Colorado and enjoy some much cooler temperatures. It remains unbearably hot for this time of year in Magnolia where today’s temperature will hit the late eighties – we have been in the late eighties and mid nineties since April and we need a break. Temperatures in Colorado will be much cooler and in the mornings likely below freezing as we near the end of the month so I’m packing Miss Poppy’s winter jacket as she hates being cold!

I look forward to having you along for adventures in Colorado – see you Thursday!